<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Love Me Tender, Love Me Sweet by justanotherrollingstony (adoctoraday)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28429410">Love Me Tender, Love Me Sweet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/adoctoraday/pseuds/justanotherrollingstony'>justanotherrollingstony (adoctoraday)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cancer, Chemotherapy, F/F, Fear of Death, Grief/Mourning, Hair Loss, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Surgery, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, radiation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:40:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,072</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28429410</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/adoctoraday/pseuds/justanotherrollingstony</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Steph loves her wife, but this monster inside of Antonia is slowly killing her, and she doesn't know how she'll live without her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Rogers/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Love Me Tender, Love Me Sweet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="">
  <p>Steph sits and stares out the window of the cabin, watching as it rains, the gloomy darkness of a fall evening making her shiver. She really shouldn’t be sitting with the windows open, she’s going to catch a cold for sure, but there’s something about the sound of rain and the scent of damp dying leaves that sends a shudder over her twisted spine.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Her hands move idly, pressing charcoal to paper to capture the way Antonia had looked earlier, reclining on the small loveseat in the studio with a book propped against her thin chest and a smile on her lips as she’d napped.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She’d looked so at peace it had nearly broken Steph’s already damaged and weak heart to have to wake her up for dinner.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She smudges some shadows under Antonia’s eyes and swallows hard against the urge to cry. She’s so tired these days—the chemo and radiation have sapped that vitality and brightness from all her smiles that had made Steph fall in love with her and Steph wishes there was something she could do, but this is their life.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Steph herself isn’t a paragon of health—asthma, congenital heart defect, scoliosis—but still, she’d give every ounce of life and health from her body if it would help Antonia.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Gentle fingers brush against her short golden locks and she shivers, turning a little to find Antonia behind her, fuzzy robe pulled tight around her too thin frame. Despite the smile on her lips she looks exhausted—deep down to her bones. Steph captures her fingers and brushes kisses across the pads, smiling faintly.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks, already knowing the answer.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Antonia nods and then comes around the chair to seat herself gently into Steph’s lap, curling up so her head can rest against Steph’s shoulder. She’s light as a feather—the chemo and radiation have stolen her appetite and her curves and left behind easily bruised skin that’s thin and papery.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Steph rubs lotion into Antonia’s skin every night, artists fingers gentle as she rubs it in to the surgery scars. Antonia is always quiet when she does, eyes closed as Steph touches the places where she’s been cut open and hollowed out.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Antonia had sobbed after the mastectomy surgery, apologized profusely to Steph for the radical change to her body as though it was her fault that the same cancer that had killed Maria was now doing its best to steal another bright light from the world.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Antonia had even tried to convince her to leave—</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>“I’m not the same woman you fell in love with Steph. Everything that made me a woman is gone.”</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>“Bullshit. Your organs don’t make you woman, you decide who and what you are, and I’m never leaving you so don’t you dare try to make me go. I love you goddamnit, as you were, as you are and as you will be.”</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Steph trails her fingers up Antonia’s spine to her neck and shoulders and massages gently, smiling sadly when Antonia makes a weak sound and nuzzles her cold nose into Steph’s throat. The soft silk of her turban is cool against Steph’s skin, yet another reminder of all Antonia has lost.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When her hair had begun falling out she’d bought a set of clippers and given Steph a steely eyed look and said, “Shave it all off.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And she had.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>They’d wept together through so many stages—the diagnosis, the initial treatments, the surgery. They’d fought and yelled and cried together, angry at the world, at the fickle bitch of genetics, at everything it seemed sometimes.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Steph rubs Antonia’s back until the tension in her thin fram eases. “Let’s go to bed,” she murmurs, shifting so she can press Antonia to her side as she rises to her feet. They walk slowly, each step painstaking until they’re back in the bedroom. Antonia’s breathing is labored and her skin is clammy so Steph situates her in bed gently and then hurries to get a warm wet cloth to wipe her down with.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Antonia’s eyes are closed, brow furrowed with pain and humiliation. She hates being weak—she’d screamed at the sky when she’d been diagnosed,<em> “I’m Antonia Fucking Stark this doesn’t happen to me!”,</em> and Steph had been there to catch her when the strength had left her legs, both of them sinking to the muddy ground, sobbing at the injustice of the world.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Steph carefully dresses Antonia in a T-shirt and sweats—the hot flashes at night sometimes have her sweating through her clothes and the sheets, but by now they’ve figured out how to keep her comfortable. When she’s done, she slides into bed alongside her wife and holds her close, listening to her soft raspy breathing as she slowly relaxes and begins to fall asleep.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I love you.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The words make something catch in Steph’s throat, now and every other time they’ve said them. She kisses Antonia’s cool brow and blinks back tears, “I love you too darling,” she chokes out, tears slipping down her face despite her best effort to hold them back.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>She thinks that maybe the end is coming—Antonia is so weak, so fragile. She stays up most nights listening to her breathe, her own chest stuttering when it falters or gasps. She thinks that when it does come, it will ruin her.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Antonia has been her love, her home, her family, and without her, Steph doesn’t know how she’ll go on. She’ll be hollowed out and left as half a person, and god, <em><strong>god</strong></em> she hopes the end doesn’t come soon. She doesn’t want Antonia to suffer, never that, but the thought of losing her is nearly too much to bear. It’s perhaps a selfish hope, but one Steph keeps in the deepest darkest recesses of her heart.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>Please don’t go yet</em>, she thinks as she listens to Antonia’s soft breathing. <em>I need you.</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>There’s a clinical trial in Monaco, a sliver of hope, and Steph knows she shouldn’t cling to it, but she does anyway. All they have left now is hope and love and perhaps a little time.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Steph kisses Antonia’s brow again and watches her sleep.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>For however long they have left, she’s going to treasure each moment with Antonia, paint her the splendor of sunsets and sunrises, hold her hand and kiss her lips and make sure that she knows she is loved, now and always.</p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Emoji Key for those who don't know what to say in the comments!<br/>❤ = you wish you could kudos again<br/>😭 = I got you right in the feels<br/>🔥 = this was so hot!<br/>🐰 = it’s so fluffy!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>